As Far As We Can
by MadamHazel
Summary: Jenny Hawkins thinks she's a normal 21st century girl. But all of that changes when she wakes up on an alien planet 3000 years later as the general of an army. Which life is real? And who is this Jack Harkness? No pairings.
1. Chapter 1

Title: As Far As We Can

Fandom: Torchwood

Rating: PG/ PG-13 for violence

Summary: Jenny Hawkins thinks she's a normal 21st century girl. But all of that changes when she wakes up on an alien planet three thousand years later and told that she's the general of an army. Which is the truth, her old life or her new one? And who is this Jack Harkness?

Disclaimer: Don't own Jack Harkness, or anything else from Torchwood that might pop up, do own everything else. Short, sweet, to the point.

Chapter 1:

_The skies were bright red with missiles exploding, each blast dripping a fiery trail down to the ground. On the ground, entire fields were being blasted with every type of weapon imaginable, ending with nothing but charred dirt._

_She ran as fast as she could through the battlefield, her movements being tracked by rounds of gunfire. She threw herself behind a short hill, just narrowly avoiding a grenade. She started reloading her gun, her chest still heaving with exertion, and turned to the man crouching next to her._

"_We can't keep this up, Jack," she said, "They're slaughtering us."_

"_Your soldiers are expecting you to fix this," he replied, not turning his eyes away from the carnage over the hill._

"_They're also expecting me not to get them killed," she snapped, "We retreat."_

_He shrugged. "I follow your orders, General. I'll sound the call."_

_He straightened slightly, and a grenade tore through his chest._

I awoke with a gasp to find that I was lying in bed. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and looking at the clock. 4:15 in the morning. I groaned and flopped back down. The memory of the dream quickly faded, leaving only a vague sense of horror.

It wasn't vague enough to let me go back to sleep, unfortunately. I lay in bed tossing and turning for twenty minutes, before I muttered, "screw it," and rolled out of bed.

Pulling on my bathrobe, I strolled down to the kitchen to find my mother already there, sipping a cup of coffee.

"Morning, Mum," I grunted.

"You're up early, Jenny," Mum said, casting an appraising eye over my flyaway hair and bedraggled bedclothes.

"Bad dream," I said, dragging myself over to the kitchen table and plopping in a chair.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Eh." I shrugged. "Don't really remember it."

Mum set her cup of coffee down and put on a comforting expression. "Well, dear," she said, "It's only a dream. It's not like-"

I laughed, "Yeah, I know, Mum," I said, "It's not like, at the tender age of nineteen, I've been exposed to the horrors of life."

Mum pretended to look offended. "I wasn't going to say that."

"Yeah, you were."

She smiled. "Yes, I was. It's just, you've been having these nightmares for months now. I'm getting worried. Maybe you should see-"

"I don't need to see a counselor, Mum," I interrupted, "I'll be fine. I think…" I hesitated, looking at her carefully, "I think they all started after we last visited Dad's grave."

Mum froze, her eyes almost filling with tears. She blinked them back and said, "I know, Jenny. I miss him too." Her lips lifted in a watery almost-smile. "It's been five years, yet it still feels like it was yesterday."

"Yeah," I said, my own eyes filling up with tears, "I know."

We both sat there in silence for a minute, each quietly sniffling and trying to regain control of ourselves.

"Well," I said, when I felt relatively normal again, "I'm going to go watch television before I have to get up for real."

"What are you doing for the holiday?" Mum asked, picking up her coffee again.

"Meeting with Sadie," I said, dropping dramatically onto the couch and picking up the remote.

"Well, have fun," she said, and I turned on the television.

Five minutes later I was asleep.

_Grenades and bullets were screaming all around her and she barely noticed, sprinting through the battlefield. _

"_Mum," she screamed, and her throat felt like it was burning. When was the last time she had had water? It didn't matter. "Mum!" she screamed again._

_An arm snapped around her waist, holding her in place. She fought against it, still screaming. _

"_It's too late," he said, "You can't go out there, there are land mines everywhere. They've got her."_

_She didn't stop struggling. "I have to save her," she said, "It's my fault she's even in this mess."_

_She felt him sigh against her back. "No, it's mine," he said, "I'll go."_

_She stopped struggling, thought for a second, then nodded. He released her and ran through the battlefield._

A hand on my shoulder jolted me awake. I jumped, and someone laughed right next to my ear. I looked up to see Sadie grinning down at me, as bouncy as the hair that stuck out from the sides of her head, and as bright as the sun streaming through the windows.

"Sleepy?" Sadie said, laughing.

"I guess," I said, rubbing my stiff neck, "What time is it?"

"Why, it's Howdy-Doody time!" Sadie said with a manic grin.

I shot her a half-amused, half-annoyed glance. She relented, and said, "It's nine. Your mum told me you got up early. Bad dreams?"

"Yeah," I said, getting up and heading to my room.

Sadie followed close on my heels, like a pet dog or a really obsessive mother hen. "What were they about? Do you want to talk about it? I am totally here if you want to talk about it."

I smiled, and said, "There's nothing to talk about, Sades. I don't even remember them. They just leave me with a weird feeling."

"Weird feeling?"

"Yeah, like-" I paused, pulling clothes out of my closet, and trying to think of a way to describe it, "Like, have you ever felt that there's something missing, or that something bigger is happening all around you and you're just missing it? Like, someone looks at you funny in a shop, or you see something out of the corner of your eye, but isn't there when you look straight at it."

Sadie raised a skeptical eyebrow. "No," she said slowly, "but I think that's called paranoia."

I sighed. "Whatever, it's just a feeling. Now would you turn around while I change?"

Sadie rolled her eyes.

Five minutes later we were out the door, Sadie throwing a hasty, "Bye, Mrs. Hawkins!" in the general direction of the kitchen. We headed to our favorites chip shop, Sadie teasing me about all manner of things under the sun.

"What you need," she said, throwing an arm around my shoulders, "is a boyfriend."

"I don't need a boyfriend," I said, sighing. We've had variations of this conversation ever since we had met nine years ago. "I'm too busy. I have work, I have to take care of Mum, you know she hasn't been feeling well, and-"

"Excuses, excuses," Sadie said, elbowing me in the side. I let out a grunt. "I bet if you had a boyfriend you wouldn't be so uptight. You'd have someone to compliment you on your gorgeous green eyes-"

"My eyes are blue, genius."

"Whatever. Your bountiful _blue_ eyes, your luscious raven locks, your svelte figure…"

"I have short hair and no figure whatsoever." I elbowed her back in the side, and she kicked me in the shin.

Just as we were about to go into a spirited discussion in front of the shop, the world rolled. Like a blanket on a waterbed, it rolled, colors blending together and details blurring. I felt sick and I stumbled, closing my eyes and putting a hand to my head.

"Are you alright?" I heard Sadie ask, as if from far away. I looked up, and everything was normal again. I was lying on the ground with Sadie leaning over me, and several bystanders looking curiously at us.

"I'm fine," I muttered, pulling myself up and staggering inside the shop.

Sadie stood as close as possible to me, offering her shoulder to lean on. I felt significantly better after only a few seconds, and pulled myself up straight.

"I'm fine," I said again, more firmly this time.

Of course, it was just then that I tripped and stumbled into someone exiting the shop.

I apologized, and he looked at me with baleful eyes. "Young kids these days," he snorted, "No sense of propriety, no honor. I bet all you do is eat and sleep, waste your life away."

He was an older man, looked to be in his fifties or sixties, with striking silver hair and a huge bushy beard the same color. His light blue eyes glittered with annoyance and, strangely, a sense of familiarity.

"Excuse me?" I spluttered, "I don't even know you."

"I'll bet you don't," he grunted, "You don't even know who you are, do you? Spending every day as if it weren't a lie, as if it weren't all that there is? There's more out there, but you don't even look, don't even try to strain for the stars."

"What?"

He ignored me. "You don't belong here, little girl," he said, "and you need to realize that. You need to fight back."

I stared at him in confusion. "Who-"

Sadie interrupted me. "Jenny, who are you talking to?" She looked worried.

I pointed out the old man- but then I noticed he wasn't there.

"You were talking to the air?" she said as if she doubted my sanity.

"No!" I protested. "There was this guy, an old man-"

"Jenn," Sadie said, looking as concerned as I had ever seen her, "There was no one there. No old man, nobody."

I stared at the space where he had been, and felt a brief surge of fear rise up in me.

"Let's just get some chips," I muttered.

After we ate, Sadie decided that it would probably be best if I just headed on home. I couldn't really blame her. I felt shaky and clammy and awful, and I imagined I probably didn't look any better. So, we parted at the door of the shop and headed home our separate ways, Sadie warning me to be careful, and don't wander off.

I accepted her admonishments with an absentminded shrug and walked away, feeling a migraine pulsing in my head. I wondered if I was going crazy. Who sees an old man that's not there, hell, who sees the world _ripple?_

As if waiting for me to think an ironic thought, the world rippled again. When it straightened out, I found myself lying on my back on the sidewalk, breathing shallowly.

I pushed myself to a sitting position, the migraine twice as bad, now, and rubbed my face. I stood up slowly, my legs wobbly and feeling as if I hadn't used them for a month. I managed to walk ten shaky steps before I saw him.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, with only slightly graying hair and he wore a long, dark coat that went to his knees. I couldn't see his face or any other details, but I knew instinctively that he was the man from the dreams I couldn't remember.

It was as if the world ceased to exist as I walked towards him. I could still see the road, the sidewalk and the houses, but they all looked slightly blurred. There were no people walking by and no cars. There was no sound at all, except for my footsteps and ragged breaths.

I stopped right next to him, and he finally turned to look at me. I felt my eyes inexplicably fill with tears as he stared blankly in my direction.

"Jenny," he said in an American accent, "do you think this is right? That this is all you are?"

"Who are you?" I said, unable to think of anything else. He looked at me with a familiarity bred of long years of camaraderie, and it made me uncomfortable and comforted all at once.

"Jenny," he said again, "You need to wake up. We need you. We can't do this without you."

"I am awake," I said. "Aren't I?"

The man continued, as if he couldn't hear me. In fact, suddenly I knew that he _couldn't_ hear me. He wasn't talking to the me on the sidewalk in London. He was talking to some other me, the one that he knew. I shivered.

He said, "You don't belong here. You've got to fight this, General. Come back."

"Why must I fight?" I asked, feeling a weariness that was both foreign and familiar settle over me.

Then he was gone, and everything was back to normal. A car drove by in the street.

I shook my head. "Weird," I muttered, and set off for home.

_She was floating in a sea of glass and tubes, flying high on a wind of drugs and chemicals. She had something she needed to do. Somewhere she needed to go. Where? Why did it matter?_

_The clicks and whistles of an alien language filtered through her ears, then slowly faded out, to be replaced with the whispers of two people talking in English._

"_There she is."_

"_God, she looks horrible."_

"_Don't get distracted, they'll come back at any minute. Help me get her out of there."_

_Soft hands, warm hands, lifting her up and pulling her away from the glass-and-tube sea. She fell into them, knowing they'd catch her._

"_What do you think they did to her?"_

"_I don't want to know. I just want her back to normal."_

"_Let's sedate her, I don't want her to wake up while we're carrying her through this place."_

"_Good idea."_

_And then she floated into blackness._

I jolted awake, and realized I wasn't in my room. In fact, I wasn't anywhere I recognized. I clutched the strangely textured blankets closer to me and wondered what was going on.

Little did I know it, but I had just truly woken up for the first time in two months.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: As Far As We Can

Fandom: Torchwood

Rating: T for violence and occasional gross stuff

Disclaimer: Don't own Jack Harkness or anything else from Torchwood, everything else I do own. Short, sweet, to the point.

A/N: So, as you've probably guessed by now, this is my fanfic. And by fanfic, I mean 'only vaguely related to the original source material' because I suck at fanfic and characterization scares me. I've only watched season 1 of Torchwood, so my characterization of Jack is probably horribly off. But, I felt like posting this anyway. I have no idea where it's going, but at least I'll have fun along the way.

Chapter 2:

It was some sort of hospital, but not like any I had ever seen. The equipment looked old, but still far more advanced than the hospitals in London. The blankets were a weird half-silky, half-plastic texture, and the room was just on the edge of uncomfortably hot.

I pulled the blankets off and stood up, noticing that I was in a weird green jumpsuit. At this point, I was barely registering what I was seeing, and just taking it all in. I stumbled out of the room into an empty hallway, and saw a door at the end of it.

I headed towards the door, thinking that maybe if I got outside I could find a phone and call mum or…something. My mental faculties didn't seem to be working right, and my thoughts raced around inside my head, none sticking long enough to really register.

The last thing I remembered was going to bed. Mum had been worried when I had gotten home, and so had sent me to the couch with a bowl of hot soup and a demand to, "tell me how you're feeling, dear." I hadn't told her about the man on the street or the old man in the shop- I knew she wouldn't understand, especially since I didn't understand myself.

After a few hours of watching television, I had decided to take a nap, still feeling sick and with an awful migraine. I had collapsed onto the bed, fully clothed and then- the dream. The dream I remembered. For some reason the fact that I remembered it terrified me more than waking up in a strange hospital.

I reached the door with relief and opened it, a vague sense of maybe, if I got some fresh air I would think more clearly. That feeling evaporated as soon as I stepped outside. This was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

The one thing I definitely know is that it's night, with tracts and tracts of starry sky. I found myself standing on a small hill, the grass soft on my bare feet. I looked at the sky curiously. It looked different, somehow. The stars looked to be all jumbled up in the wrong places, and the moon…

I let out a gasp when I realize there are three moons. My thoughts began to come together and get clearer as I took stock of my surroundings. The hill I was standing on was one of many in the area, creating a rolling sea of grass. While inside the hospital it had been warm, outside it was pleasantly cool as a breeze blew against me.

Also, the grass was blue.

I wandered forward aimlessly, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Where was I? Was I really on an alien planet? What was I doing here? How did I get here? The questions whirled through my head as I just kept walking over hill after hill, barely seeing where I was going.

I finally arrived at the top of a bigger hill and stopped. While before the only scenery had been blue grass and the occasional clear-blue lake, now I saw charred earth, rusting pieces of metal, and sharp rocks for as far as the eye could see.

The sight filled me with a deep sadness that I couldn't really explain, and I slowly walked down to the blackened earth. Just as I bent down to look at one of the pieces of metal, I saw figures coming towards me in the distance.

I headed towards them, careful of my bare feet, hoping that maybe they'd have some answers for me. But as I got closer and could see them better, I could tell that something was off about them.

They walked with a sort of lumbering gait, each step more of a plod, their arms hanging loosely at their sides. Their faces were disfigured, and set in a permanent sneer, their eyes bugging out more than should be physically possible. Pieces of flesh were peeling off of their face. They looked like zombies.

I had just decided that these…things wouldn't help me at all, and turned to get away from them when they spotted me. They let out moans and started moving faster. The sound terrified me, and I froze in fear. I felt like I couldn't move as they got closer and closer. Their stench wafted towards me and my stomach clenched.

Just when I thought there was no hope left, the nearest one exploded in a shower of blood. I turned my head and saw the one responsible, running down the hill holding out a strange looking gun.

He shot two more of the things before reaching me, and as he got closer I realized with a gasp that he was the man from the street the day before. He shot another of the disgusting things, and the rest began to shuffle off in another direction.

He grabbed my arm and dragged me towards the hill I had come down from, keeping his down up with his other hand and looking warily around.

As soon as we got to the top of the hill, he exploded into a flurry of words. "What were you thinking, wandering off like that? You could have been killed!"

I ignored him, concentrating on my own thoughts, and asked, "Who are you?"

He looked at me, surprise darkening his eyes. "Don't you know?"

I let out a slightly hysterical laugh. "How could I? I only just saw you yesterday. Where am I? What's going on?"

He sat me down, then sat next to me. "What do you remember?"

I stared at him, slightly uncomfortable from the familiarity with which he was talking to me. "I went to bed, then I woke up here. Where is here?" I asked again.

He stared at me for a long moment. I shifted, even more uncomfortable with the intensity of his gaze, and stared out at the charred area in front of me.

"You're on the planet Maltor," he said, "In the Retticus galaxy."

"Oh," I said, not entirely sure how to respond to that. I wasn't even sure I believed him, but- this all seemed so familiar somehow. Like a half-remembered dream that I hadn't woken up from.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," he continued, "You really don't remember?"

I shrugged. "Like I said, I only saw you yesterday on the street. And," I paused, a bit embarrassed for some reason, "I think I've been having dreams about you."

He smirked, and said with a previously absent cocky tone, "Well, that's not unusual." The smirk soon drifted off, however, and his face slid back into its grim expression. "Where do you remember being last?"

"At my house, in London," I said, "My mum sent me to bed- well, she sent me to the couch and I sent myself to bed."

To my surprise, Jack's face looked stricken with grief. "Your mother?" he almost whispered.

"Yeah, Maria Hawkins," I said, "Why?"

He shook his head slowly, avoiding my eyes, and put a hand on my shoulder. "No reason. Don't worry about it." Still avoiding my eyes, he asked, "What year was it, in London?"

"2011," I said, "Why? Don't tell me I've traveled in time, too."

He gave a wry chuckle, and patted my shoulder, saying, "I'm afraid you have. Right now it's the year 4130."

I looked away from him out towards the field. "Oh," I said again.

I could feel his gaze on my face, scrutinizing me. He said, "You're taking this well."

"I don't think I'm taking it in at all," I said, letting out a laugh that became a dry sob. "I'm on an alien planet, in the future, with some bloke I've been dreaming about thinking I should know all of this."

"I don't know what's happened to you," Jack said, his voice firm and in control, "but trust me, I'm going to find out." I nodded, a lump rising in my throat. I didn't even know him, but somehow I felt safe with this Captain Jack Harkness. His gaze shifted out towards the field as well. There were more figures lumbering towards us in the distance.

"We should go," he said, "It's not safe here. We'll go back to base and continue our discussion."

Without giving me the chance to respond, he stood up, pulling me to my feet as well. He handed me another of the odd guns. "You'll need this."

I looked at him as if he was crazy. It struck me as ironic that, of all the things he had said so far, this was the one I took exception to, but I shook that aside and said, "A gun? I'm from twenty-first second London. You know, England? The UK? Gun control laws? I don't even play violent video games."

"Trust me," he said, giving me a serious gaze, "Try it."

I looked out at the slowly, but steadily, gaining figures, brought the gun up to my shoulders, and, barely even thinking about what I was doing, my finger fell on the trigger as if it were an old friend. The shot went clear and true, crossing however many meters there were and hitting the lead creature straight in the chest. I brought the gun down from my shoulder slowly.

"I'm Jason Bourne," I breathed.

Jack grabbed my arm, and pulled me in the direction of the hospital. "Come on," he said, and we started running through the blue grass.

A/N: It starts off slow, but it picks up, I promise. In a few chapters. As soon as I think up a plot. XD Anyway, reviews are appreciated. A little known fact, writers don't actually eat. They just use reviews for sustenance to keep them going. That's where the phrase "starving artist" comes from. (spoiler: it's not) Just something to keep in mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: As Far As We Can

Fandom: Torchwood

Rating: T for violence and occasional gross stuff

Disclaimer: Don't own Jack Harkness or anything else from Torchwood that might pop up, do own everything else. Short, sweet, to the point.

A/N: Here's chapter three! The plot thickens. Actually, it doesn't. The next chapters will be full of plotty exposition, so hold on to your hats, gentle readers!

Chapter 3:

Going back to the hospital, even at the pace we were running, was a lot longer than I remembered. Now that my head was clearing up for the first time in what seemed like days, my mind started running through what I had just learned.

I was on an alien planet, thousands of years from what I knew. A man named Jack Harkness seemed to know me, and apparently knew my mum form his reaction to my mention of her. For some reason I knew how to fire an alien gun, and we were being chased by zombies.

The situation just seemed so bizarre, so out of the ordinary, that I could barely believe it. The cool wind brushing against my face, and the soft blue grass on my bare feet made it all seem like a wondrous dream. I felt dizzy, and I stopped running and swayed on the spot.

Jack turned to look at me, and immediately put his arm around me and pulled me into a hug. I leaned my head into his shoulder, my breathing erratic, and he whispered, "I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

I asked the first thing to come to my mind. "What are those things?"

"Flesh Eaters," he said, as if it were an everyday occurrence.

"So they are zombies, then," I said, "Great."

I could feel Jack's chuckle vibrate through his chest. "Close enough," he said, "They gravitate to battlefields, places where blood has been shed." He gently pushed me away from him and looked into my eyes, still holding my upper arms. "Look, I promise I'll tell you everything as soon as we get to base," he said, "but for now we have to keep going. It's not safe out here."

I nodded, sniffling a bit. He squeezed my arms encouragingly, then grabbed my hand, and we resumed running.

When we finally reached the hospital, several minutes later, I barely noticed the fact that I wasn't out of breath as I realized that it wasn't just a hospital after all. It was just part of a larger building, housing, as Jack explained, headquarters for…whatever this was, and the center of a large city of tents and lean-tos.

Jack took me into the large central building, guiding me by the hand. Contrary to when I had left the building, the hallways were packed with people, who watched me as I came in. As we moved down the hall, people turned and whispered to each other, eyeing every move I made. I realized with a dull sort of surprise that only a third of the people were human. The other two-thirds were a mix of two kinds of aliens. I crept closer to Jack.

Halfway down the hall, someone said to me, "Welcome back, General!" Soon, all the others were repeating it. Clapping started to echo around the halls, and I wondered who they were expecting me to be. Whoever they were expecting, it certainly wasn't the dull nineteen-year-old from London that I was.

Jack pulled one of the aliens from the crowd and whispered to him, "Gather up the council, and tell them to meet us in the briefing room. And tell Sam."

The alien nodded, and moved away, squeezing between the people ogling me as we kept moving. We finally made it to a large metal door, people still crowding behind us trying to shake my hand. Jack opened the door and pushed me in, saying to the crowd, "Sorry, the General is still feeling ill from her ordeal. She'll come out and make a statement later."

There was a chorus of disappointed groans, which evolved into excited chattering, which was abruptly cut short by Jack closing the door.

He turned to face me, keeping his hand around my arm as he had done the entire trek through the building. "Are you alright?" he asked, looking closely at me. I nodded numbly. He squeezed my arm once and let go, saying, "I know this seems confusing, Jenny. But I promise that soon everything will become clear."

I nodded again, barely focusing on him. He went to sit down at a large table in the center of the room and I followed him, sitting next to him in an uncomfortable metal chair that felt like it would break apart at any minute.

Soon, a door opened at the other end of the room and three other people walked in. One was human, a brown-haired woman in her thirties, but the other two were aliens. One was dark green and scaly, with no visible ears and a serious expression on his face. The other looked like a real-life teddy bear, ears and all, with grey fur, sparkling black eyes, and a jovial smile on his face.

"There she is," said the teddy bear, sitting beside Jack, "All safe and sound from her tough ordeal. Attagirl."

The scaly one merely nodded and sat down on the other side of me. The human woman shot me a hard glare, pressing her lips firmly together and sat down across from me, looking as though she'd rather be anywhere but sitting there looking at my face.

Jack leaned over to the teddy bear and whispered, "Where's Sam?"

The teddy bear looked apologetic and said, "He's locked himself in his workshop. I looked in on him, but he was muttering to himself and throwing things around."

Jack sighed, and said in a low voice as though he didn't want me to hear, "He's going to have to see her sometime."

As the teddy bear nodded in agreement, Jack stood up and surveyed everyone. While it was clear that they were paying attention to him, they were all staring at me. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably.

Jack said, without preamble, "We have a problem."

The scaly one looked away from me to Jack and said, "More than the fact that our leader has been in captivity for two months? I should think that getting her back would solve a problem, not cause a new one."

The woman spat, "You'd know all about causing us problems, wouldn't you, Mr. Businessman? Crunching numbers to keep the little guy down, just like your bosses."

Scaly narrowed his eyes. "Your anger is irrational, since I have made it clear that I have severed all ties with my former employers."

"Yeah, but only after they slaughtered thousands of people. What, they didn't give you enough money per decapitated head of the working man?" The woman's shoulders were tensing, and though she were getting ready to spring across the table and strangle Scaly.

The alien was getting ready to make a response when Jack cut in. "Zi, Hectra, we don't have time for this."

They both murmured an apology, and Jack turned to me. "Jenny, let me make some introductions. This," he pointed at Scaly, "is Zi Linx. He's a Zinxian."

"That's a lot of x's," I muttered under my breath. Jack didn't seem to hear me, and moved on, pointing to the woman. "This is Hectra Zade. She's human, as you probably guessed. And this," he said, pointing to the teddy bear, "is Morton, who is a Maltorian, a native of this planet."

The other three looked at him with confusion. Morton raised his hand. "Uh, Jack?" he said, "Why are you introducing us? The General's known us for years."

"And that's the problem," Jack said, "She doesn't remember. She thinks that she's spent her whole life on twenty-first century Earth."

Zi Linx said something in a language I didn't recognize, but it sounded like a swear word. "So that's what they meant," he said, "When they said that they would incapacitate her even if we got her back."

Jack nodded solemnly. "She doesn't remember a thing about the war, or this planet, or anything remotely useful to the cause. She's helpless."

"Does she know anything about you?" Hectra said loudly, giving Jack a suspicious glare.

Jack replied evenly, "I said she didn't remember anything. That includes me."

Hectra gave a nasty smirk. "Bet that dents your ego, huh, Harkness?"

Jack sent her an even glare, and Hectra leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms, a self-satisfied smirk still on her face.

Morton stood up, patting the air in a placating gesture. "Now, now, fellas," he said in a calming tone, "I think our first priority should be to figure out how to put the General back to rights. We can save our petty arguing for later."

"We also should figure out how the Corporation was able to get her in the first place," Zi added.

Jack nodded and sat down, Morton sitting down soon after. Jack looked around the table. "Any ideas?" he said.

As they talked amongst themselves about things I didn't understand, the reality of my situation hit me for the first time. My stomach started churning and my heart felt like it was gripped by bands of iron, and I gave a hysterical laugh.

Everybody stopped talking and stared at me. I kept laughing, tears coming to my eyes.

"Jenny, what's wrong?" Jack said, leaning over closer to me.

That only made me laugh harder. "What's wrong?" I repeated, still laughing. "Of all the things that you could ask, you ask me what's _wrong_? What isn't wrong? My life has just been turned upside down, everything I know is gone, and you tell me that the whole thing wasn't real anyway. I'm surrounded by- by aliens and things I don't understand, everyone seems to know me, I'm supposed to be some sort of general of an army when I didn't even know I could fire a gun, everything is different, nothing feels the way it should, and you're asking me what's _wrong_?"

By now my laughter was turning into harsh, racking sobs and tears were running down my face. I could barely speak or see due to the tears.

Jack surged out of his chair and cupped my face in his hand. "Hey," he said softly, "I-"

I leapt out of the chair and away from his hand. Who was he, to think he could just act like he knew me.

"This is crazy," I said, my voice high and squeaky, "You're all crazy. Just leave me _alone!_"

With that I ran out of the door the others had come in, still sobbing. I ran down the now-empty hallways, barely looking where I was going. I ran, making turns randomly, until I reached a dead end with a door in the wall. I leaned against the wall next to the door and slid down until I was sitting on the floor.

I buried my face in my knees and pulled my hands up over my head, still sobbing. I sat like that for a few minutes, unable to take in what was going on. Eventually, my tears began to subside, and I began thinking. That's when the door opened.

I didn't look up at first, assuming that whoever it was, they would just leave. But to my surprise, a familiar-sounding gruff voice came from above. "Well, are you going to sit there bawling your eyes out all day long, or are you going to come in?"

I looked up, wiping my eyes, and realized with a start that it was the old man from the shop. He shot me a glare. "Well, chop-chop, girl," he said, "I haven't got all day. Come in."

I tentatively stood up and went through the door. Inside was a baffling array of mechanical pieces, parts of guns and other machines that I couldn't even hope to recognize. Through an open door in the back I could see a small kitchen, and there was a cot in the corner.

"Cup of tea?" the man said. It was a rhetorical question, since he was already in the kitchen preparing some.

I stood in the middle of the workshop, looking around at all the various items. After a bit, in which neither one of us said anything, he was out again with two cups of tea. He shoved some parts off of the corner of a table and sat the tea there, pulling up stools for both of us.

"Now then," he said, as if he'd never gone anywhere, "What were you whining about out there?"  
>I sipped my tea, and found with surprise that it reminded me of the tea my mum always made. I felt strangely comforted, and the tears which were threatening to rise up again subsided.<p>

"I assume you know who I am," I said. He nodded.

"And I should probably know who you are," I continued.

He nodded again and then said, "But you don't." It was a statement more than a question.

I shook my head and took another sip of tea. "I don't remember anything. Jack could tell you more, I don't really understand it."

His face took on a pensive look. "So Harkness re-introduced himself to you, I see. Figured he would."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The man chuckled. "You get to know him long enough, you'll know what I'm talking about. Well, as long as we're handing out introductions…" He held out a calloused hand. "I'm Sam."

I almost smiled. "Jenny," I said, and shook his hand.

"So, Jenny," Sam said, leaning his elbows on the table, "Tell me what you do remember."

Half an hour later I was still talking, feeling better than I had since I had woken up in the hospital. Sam hadn't spoken much, just listened with an interested expression on his face. I had finished off most of the tea, Sam not drinking any.

I was just winding down talking, when Jack burst into the room, his coat flaring out behind him. He stopped when he saw us sitting at the table together.

"There you are," he said, "I was worried."

"I'll bet you were," Sam muttered. Jack shot him a glance, then quickly turned to me with a concerned look.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, running an examining eye over my face.

I shrugged, and replied, "How am I supposed to be feeling?"

Jack was about to respond, when Sam cut in. "I heard you lost her as soon as you got her back. She almost ran into the Flesh Eaters. Real efficient operation you got here, Harkness. One little girl goes missing and suddenly your can't cope."

"I got to her before anything could happen," Jack said, acting as though this sort of conversation happened all the time. "She was dazed, confused. I notice you didn't do anything."

Sam shrugged and started clearing up the plates. "This whole war is a fool's errand. You're all deluding yourselves."

"Then why are you here?" Jack challenged.

Sam looked at me for a long moment, then quickly turned away. "It's as good a place as any to hide," he muttered, and carried the cups back into the kitchen.

Jack turned back to look at me. "Do you feel up to going back to the council again?"

A lump rose in my throat, and I shook my head.

Sam yelled from the kitchen, "She's obviously tired. Let her get some rest."

"Would you like that?" Jack asked, looking carefully at me.

"Yeah," I said softly, knowing that I probably looked as bad as I felt.

Jack nodded. "I'll take you to your room."

Several hallways and confusing turns later, we were in a small, uncomfortable-looking room with only a bed, a nightstand and a dresser. But that barely mattered to me, since as soon as I got in there I collapsed on the bed and began to sleep.

And then I began to dream.

A/N: So, what do you think? Did Jenny overreact, or not react enough? What exactly is the situation on Maltor? Who is Sam, anyway?


End file.
